A Weblog by One Humble Bookman on Topics of Interest to Discerning Readers, Including (Though Not Limited To) Science Fiction, Books, Random Thoughts, Fanciful Family Anecdotes, Publishing, Science Fiction, The Mating Habits of Extinct Waterfowl, The Secret Arts of Marketing, Other Books, Various Attempts at Humor, The Wonders of New Jersey, the Tedious Minutiae of a Boring Life, Science Fiction, No Accounting (For Taste), And Other Weighty Matters.

Who Is This Hornswoggler?

Andrew Wheeler has worked in book publishing for 25 years. He spent 16 years as a bookclub editor (for the SFBC and others), and is now does marketing for Wiley. He was a judge for the 2005 World Fantasy Awards and the 2008 Eisner Awards. He also reviewed a book a day for a year (and he's doing it again now!). He lives with The Wife and two mostly tame sons (Thing One, born 1998; and Thing Two, born 2000) at an unspecified location in suburban New Jersey. He has been known to drive a minivan, and nearly all of his writings are best read in a tone of bemused sarcasm. Antick Musings’s manifesto is here. All opinions expressed here are entirely and purely those of Andrew Wheeler, and no one else.

Tuesday, January 08, 2008

Carol Pinchefskythinks so. (Or at least is willing to entertain the idea long enough to write an article on it.)

The money quote: "one editor of a major publication house gave his girlfriend, an author, a large advance and bragged to his colleagues about making his next house payment."

Since Antick Musings is all about uncomfortable questions and making connections between things that should be left separate, we're going to tackle the important question -- who the heck is that mysterious editor?

Russell B. Farr of Ticonderoga Publications -- of whom I have no knowledge, but he's Australian, and the Australian SFF Cabal invited me to their wild party before World Fantasy, so I'll give him the element of the doubt.

James Frenkel-- is he Joan Vinge's editor? That would be odd, but not unknown. (cf. the late James Rigney) On the other hand, they're married, so she's not his "girlfriend."

David G. Hartwell -- is married

John Klima -- is married, and I doubt he has that kind of budget to begin with

Peter Lavery -- I know nothing about his home life

James Minz -- is married

Darren Nash -- another one I don't know

Patrick Nielsen Hayden -- is married, to a fellow editor at the same house

William Schaefer -- owns his company, so who would care?

Stanley Schmidt -- is married

Paul Stevens -- nah, don't think so

Gordon Van Gelder -- is married

Sean Wallace -- also married

Jacob Weisman -- similarly married

Sean Wright of Crowswing Books -- no idea, but I don't think he has a house-payment sized budget

Wikipedia has a longer list, also including many among the dead and inactive. If this is an old and hoary anecdote, it could be about one of them.

I'll also note that I have essentially assumed that a married man could not have a "girlfriend" as well -- an assumption belied by the actual history of the SF field, and I know that -- to simplify things. I also am concentrating on men, even though female editors could also have "girlfriends," simply because it seems ruder to pick on women in this way. (Is that sexist of me?)

I don't see any good candidates here. Closely reading the quote, "house" implies book publishing, which limits the list. "Colleagues" also implies that this person works in the company of other editors, also limiting the possibilities. (Knowing salacious gossip about who is sleeping with who would help, but I'm usually out of the loop about that. Anyone who wants to cure my ignorance is reminded my e-mail is acwheele atoptonline dot net.)

Anyone want to make guesses? (If so, please be cognizant of the libel laws in your locality...)

6 comments:

I suspect the technical term for this is something like a "no smoke without fire" quote. The idea being that you drop in a fabricated "real" story about corruption in order to make the denials of the people you have interviewed seem less plausible.